INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR AND BIDDING HETEROGENEITY IN SEALED BID AUCTIONS WHERE THE NUMBER OF BIDDERS IS UNKNOWN

This article uses laboratory data from a series of first‐price (FP) and second‐price (SP) sealed bid auctions in which the number of bidders is unknown to test for possible deviations of individual behavior from theory and study the source of heterogeneity in bidding. In SP auctions we find a substantial amount of coincidence with theory. We observe systematic deviations from risk neutral bidding in FP auctions and show theoretically that these deviations are consistent with risk averse preferences. We find essentially no heterogeneity in bidding in SP auctions where risk preferences and the number of bidders do not affect the optimal bid, while in the FP auctions heterogeneity in bidding persists with experience. We find that heterogeneity in bidding in FP auctions is consistent with heterogeneity in risk preferences, the attempt to count the number of bidders in the auction, and bidder specific noise. (JEL D44, C91)     

Southwest Ethnic Literature of China in English-speaking World---An Interview with Professor Mark Bender of Ohio University,USA

Professor Huang Li conducted an interview with Professor Mark Bender of Ohio Uni-versity in 2013.Their discussion focuses on the translation and propagation of the ethnic literature of Southwest China ...     

DO PRICES LEAD MONEY? A REEXAMINATION OF THE NEUTRALITY HYPOTHESIS

In one class of theoretical models, real epects occur only if changes in money growth are expected to occur in some future period, if expected in the current period, they are neutral. Some empirical models examine the neutrality of expected current money growth and therefore do not directly address the neutrality of expected future growth. This paper develops an empirical model that explicitly incorporates expected future changes in money growth. A reexamination of the rationality, neutrality, and macro-rational expectations hypotheses over a sample of four countries suggests that the use of expected future money growth results in strong rejections of the neutrality hypothesis.     

理解爱荷华——“创意写作”在美国的诞生和发展

“创意写作”(Creative Writing)是以文字创作为形式、以作品为载体的创造性活动,它是文化创意产业链最重要、最基础的工作环节.创意写作学科是研究创意写作本身的活动规律、创意写作教育教学规律、创意产业管理和运作规律的学科,是为“创意写作”提供基础理论支持的科学.目前创意写作学科建设在中国还处于起步阶段,该学科的建设对国家文化创新力的提升,对文化创意产业的发展升级具有关键性作用.中国高校应该进行教育教学改革,通过创意写作学科的创建提升高校人文创造力及文化创新人才培养力.与传统写作学重点研究“作文学”不同,创意写作学着重研究“创意”心理及其写作规律,创意写作学科需要对文学创作、生产类创意文本写作、工具类功能文本写作等进行系统区分,对虚构类文本和非虚构类文本创作进行分类研究,分别探讨其内部规律;同时,创意写作学还是一门实践性非常强的学科,需要研究“创意写作”课程的组织形式(如工坊制教学)及其教育教学规律,借鉴美国等先发国家的先进经验.     

OPTION VALUE: A GENERAL APPROACH

This article examines a potential bias if expected consumer surplus is used to measure the benefits of a price change under uncertainty. This bias, which is called option value, may be positive or negative. A general framework is developed for analyzing the determinants of the sign of option value, and this framework is applied to three types of uncertainty: income uncertainty, quality uncertainty, and uncertainty over consumer tastes. In the first two cases, option value has a determinate sign; however, in the last case, option value may be positive, negative, or zero in an unpredictable fashion.     

IS THE BUDGET DEFICIT “TOO LARGE?”

Yes. Specifically, we find that recent spending and taxing policies of the government–if continued–violate the government's intertemporal budget constraint. As a result, government spending must be reduced and/or tax revenues must be increased. These conclusions are based on tests of whether government spending and revenue are cointegrated. In addition to examining real spending and revenue, we also normalize these variables by real GNP and population. For a growing economy, these normalized measures are perhaps more pertinent. We also test and find support for the hypothesis that deficits have become a problem only in recent years.     

RECESSIONS AND RECOVERIES IN REAL BUSINESS CYCLE MODELS

We evaluate the ability of a simple real business cycle model to generate business cycles in the classical NBER sense of the term, where recessions are periods of absolute declines in economic activity. We use the "phase" classification of Burns and Mitchell [1946] to determine the "shape" of the business cycle and to look for asymmetries between expansions and contractions. We show that such a model can generate business cycles of plausible duration and depth, but cannot match the actual "Shape" of the business cycle. Nonlinear models, such as Friedman's [1993] "plucking" model may more closely match the observed shape.     

News Framing and Cueing of Issue Regimes: Explaining Clinton's Public Approval in Spite of Scandal

During the period of exceedingly critical news coverage surroundingthe Monica Lewinsky debacle, President Bill Clinton's job approvalratings were at some of the highest levels they reached duringhis tenure in office. Given this public response, many pollsters,pundits, and scholars argued that news coverage of the scandalmust have been largely irrelevant to the public. Our view countersthese claims by advancing a theory that recognizes that citizens'political preferences are influenced substantially by framesand cues provided by news media. To test our ideas, we drawupon three types of data, all from January 1993 to March 1999:(a) a longitudinal content analysis of major news media, (b)a time-trend of opinion polls on presidential job approval,and (c) monthly estimates of real disposable personal income,seasonally adjusted. Analyses reveal that news media emphasisupon and framing of certain issue regimes—to the framingof the scandal in terms of the strategic motives of conservativeelites.